My Cloud 9

I was in cloud 9 that time and all I know of is bliss. It seems to be so surreal but true. You have that blush in your cheeks when upon waking up, it is no a dream. Yes, butterfly kisses are true and they are sweet. Those murmurs you have as one sends tiny tingles in your ears just in time for you to flutter your eyelids to greet the morning sun. It was all good and there is nothing that I can think of that time. The smell of the well-done eggs ready to be served and my own rush to take part in the scene of what I call - my happiness. It was happiness, I was happy, I was smiling, I was in my cloud 9. 

As I welcome those warm embraces, what more can I ask for? These are my simple pleasures that I can continue on treasuring for the rest of my life. It is in this small space that we had that I finally found my cloud 9, my love. It was in the midst of uncertainty that I proclaimed love. And, it is in this small space that I started relishing every dream that I had in the past. Again, this is now all true. I have my smiles to prove it.

But it was a gamble in fact. A gamble when I know, my cloud 9 will just be any cloud that will pour like rain over summer. I have my cloud 9 but I know it will never last. And then, I started realising, cloud 9s are never sweet. Mine is bitter - bitter with tears. The realisation of my dreams in fact cost me my cloud 9, cost me my love. And, I never knew until I realised that my cloud 9 is gone, that I lost it in my gamble just for love.

Can I have your world too?

I have your heart but I do not fit in your world. It is sad and agonizing to realize that I may be living in a fairytale when tears are hidden in the darkness of the pillows. I got your heart but not the world where you live. True, it is a gamble, it is a risk. I swallowed them all. Can't you? Bittersweet but yes, it is reality. A slap may be good to let me end my wander in this what I thought happiness.

Can I consider it as being unfair? Selfish? Or am I the one? Insecure, perhaps. Begging, yes. All I wish is to step in your world. This is empty yearning that I know too well will never happen. Again, can you risk? Can you gamble? Or, can I fit in?

A lot of questions, always, well, in this life when questions are more than answers. Where answers are vague but one just has to swallow everything. It hurts, it is killing me. And, until when should I bear this? Too uncertain, maybe, until such time that I can have my someone who will let me own his world too.

Do you think it is easy to be a mistress?

Yeah right!!! Gone are the days when we all have to contend in the proximity of what the norm is. Society is no better than any one's self whose existence will solely depend on the dictates of the world. This is the year when mistresses are venerated..exulted.

But yes, it is no easy task, nor an easy role, not a chicken responsibility and never an ideal life to live. Why? Just examine the myriad of reasons that a usual man-woman relationship has and why did they decided to fall in love or worse, tie the knot? They love each other. But what about mistresses? Aren't they supposed to be human beings whose hearts are no stranger to anyone else? Well, a puff of a cigarette exhumes all these insecurities and allows one mistress to face the morning sun the next day. A challenge.

It is a dilemma. It is a statement but has never been a fact. Especially in a society when norms are upheld and are treated as gods far venerated that any other decaying saint. Mistresses are just statements that define reality but never constitute life. It is a fact but never a weighed evidence to justify why man lives on this earth. Yes, we are born to love, a love that is supposed to conform to the norms.

Until when should we all allow our thoughts, our realities in this agonizing truth that we are all promiscuous in our feelings? Save that of the promiscuity to ones flesh, but yes, the truth slaps us well enough to face mistresses in our daily life struggles.

Until when should we tolerate such? Are we not consumed with such drama? But no, that is what makes the world go round. We may decay soon, but this truth will always haunt every woman and man who has been a recluse of the norm of the society. The hell with that norm. Why should we conform when we were born with an inherent right to be happy?

And I rest my case...

The DEVC 208 Journey

Yes, we can market behavior in almost the same way as we market a shampoo or a soap or a toothpaste. But just the same way as it is not easy to come up with a very effective shampoo commercial, the same holds true for social marketing. It is not as easy as saying "no to drugs" or "no to smoking" and every one else will follow. Apparently, social marketing does not market human needs and wants but it markets humans itself. Social marketing markets what humans should be - the behavior, the ways, the character. It can be compared to the Champs Elysees when one peddles perfumes, but this time, what is being peddled perhaps are ways how to fight climate change, quitting smoking, or stop bullying at school. The primary realm of social marketing is humans - now that is where the challenge is.

DEVC 208 has provided me with the basic knowledge on how to market good values to people. While it is a challenging feat for every individual to campaign, seek for support and mobilize people to adapt good behavior, as a Dev Com advocate, that strong sense of responsibility to ensure that as the country progresses so is the people.

The journey is still on and so is the challenge. But of course, so long as on keeps an eye of what the ultimate goal is - development, then one can never go wrong.

Happy 208 journey everyone.

Why Facebook?

Who does not have a Facebook account? I bet, majority of us will definitely claim to having one. Once used to be an alternative of Friendster and a respite for bored office employees playing Farmville to kill the boredom or redundancy of office work, now became one of the most interactive, the most viewed social networking site in the planet.

Digital buzz has conjured interesting numbers of Facebook which really defines how Facebook now plays a major role in the society. Philippines is number 8 as per Socialbaker's tally.

What does this tell us?

Facebook is in our midst not just to connect everyone or to serve as one's personal photo album, or to express ones emotion, etc. It is also there to cater to a lot of other fields, arts, science, technology, transportation, business, finance, environment, etc., name it, Facebook has it. It evolved from an ordinary social networking site to a platform where everyone can promote a cause, advertise a product, share a breaking news or exchange ideas of social significance.

Companies, non profit organizations, etc maintain an official Facebook page to allow consumers and clients to interact with the product. It provides a chance for these companies to advertise new releases, trends and even fads to their consumers at no cost at all. While consumers can comment on a product and in some cases, even get an immediate feedback. Undeniably, even corporate executives maintain a Facebook account to enable them to reach their constituents and yes, even valued clients.

Likewise, a lot of private groups or individuals utilize Facebook to champion for their causes such as animal cruelty, climate change, drug or substance abuse, violence against women and children, etc. It serves as a medium for these champion causes' voice to be heard, to serve as a forum for discussion and to eventually effect behavioral change.

This social networking site caters to a whole range of audiences. Although restricted by internet connectivity, yet, this is not even considered a luxury as one can easily pay Php 20.00 in an internet shop for an hour surf of the page.

Such popularity of Facebook has influenced the traditional forms of media that most of us have been exposed to. Even a television network, a radio station or a newspaper company has corresponding Facebook accounts. Its existence has eventually defined what new media is and perhaps will continue to linger for long.


Photo credit:
http://5.mshcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/facebook-bullying.jpg

What have I learned so far...

Objectives are not really my forte and this module when we are requested to segmentize our audience and generate the goals and objectives our social marketing project I suddenly became dazed by the tasks that I immediately scribble for more notes.

I am so good at thinking of plans and projects but I simply find it hard to set where I wish to be headed. I feel my plans and projects are worth it but they just cannot find the direction, where they should be heading at because I just lack these requisites. It is easy to dream yet it is so hard to direct such goal into reality perhaps.

This week is by far the most challenging of the other modules which I have dealt with. My social marketing project is all about reducing the production of household garbage and I thought it is just it. But I am completely wrong. Not only that I am compelled to read more about the amount of household garbage generated by most Filipino households but also I have to internalize my campaign itself - this is all about a cause, an advocacy and not just any school work that I have to fulfill. I am a DevCom practitioner and this should go beyond the want to do it but above all, it is a responsibility to wake everyone up and move everyone into action. But how to do it? That is the biggest hurdle.

Identifying the audience is easy. It is everyone's responsibility to look after the garbage that each one produces. It is likewise a collective effort of every household member to put a conscious effort in reducing household garbage, be able to minimize and recycle.

What proves as a challenge is setting the goal and identifying the objectives. I have long been exposed to ensure that objectives should be SMART but when it comes to actually doing it for your own project, the blank wall is imminent in my midst. Trying to come up with concrete objectives that can operationalize my goal required me to go over with the readings multiple times and research on some other objectives of other projects conducted by organizations such as the U.N. While my work was not really worth a second look (they still seem mediocre), but this module has really challenged me to do good in the group project (maybe I can still show of what I learned in this area).

I am grateful for the rest of my colleagues in my section who have posted their work too as they provided me with a good chance to look upon their own objectives and learn from it. It is still a long way to go but I sure am learning in every way that I can. So long as I keep everything in my heart and a steady mind, these are always essential to enable me to reach goals in the end.


Photo credit:


http://www.freshtracks.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/powerful-questions-every-leader-should-ask-their-team.jpg
http://wealthartisan.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Sign-Success-Failure-Direction-Business.jpg

A fleeting bliss...

What do we get when what we have in our midst is nothing but the raw passion of the hour? We break each others souls in such intensity that the clock on your wall seems to have stopped. Such a slow but hurried passion that we get...that we share...and yes, we devour. Nothing but the most sinful of the deed which defies the norms of passion. Our eyes speak nothing as they struck each others gaze. I get what I want and you get what you want. Behind that are our two souls ripped apart by want but brought together by need.

And, after this, when we are torn and we are lifeless. Nothing but numbness starts to engulf what was left. That numbness that will linger until the clock will strike back again chiming for another earthly passion. We will keep everything in our heart where the blood streaming in its veins will be the only living cell to relish the macabre of our deed.

By the time I stepped out of your door, I have nothing but my sanity licking the wounds of my soul. We torn each other apart and until then, we will always be empty. Until then, we will still bear that hole in the pit of our stomach, agonizingly remembering every time the clock stopped ticking. Our bodies were in heaven but not our soul.